Monday, August 08, 2011

Well, How About That?

Here's an interesting auction catalog that came in the other day -the title tells you nothing in particular, so I got curious as to whose estate it was, and Googled the date...

“Property from a Private Collection”

New York; Sotheby’s: October 28-29, 1988.

The sale of Sunny and Claus Von Bulow’s estate furnishings. The story was told by the Philadelphia Inquirer noted a few days after the sale-

“There were certainly no bargains for souvenir-hunters at the two-day auction of English furniture, oil paintings, porcelain and silver belonging to Martha "Sunny" and Claus von Bulow. The sale at Sotheby's, which ended Saturday, netted $11,562,980, far more than the expected $6 million to $7.5 million. Saturday's sale of furniture and decorations alone brought $6.7 million - a record for English furniture. The sale featured furnishings from the von Bulows' Newport, R.I., mansion, Clarendon Court, and their spacious apartment at 960 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. The auction had been advertised merely as "Property From a Private Collection," but the catalogue cover featured a drawing of Clarendon Court. Von Bulow, 62, a Danish-born aristocrat, was tried twice for trying to murder his wife by injecting her with insulin. He was acquitted after the second trial in 1985. "Sunny" von Bulow, who fell into a coma in 1980, remains in a vegetative state in a hospital here. Once the word got out, the sale became a celebrity auction comparable to the sale of the Duchess of Windsor's jewels and Andy Warhol's cookie jars. The displays were crowded with sightseers for two days before the sale.”